On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 02:34:43 GMT, Richard wrote:



Most commercial tomato growers, especially those who grow tomatoes for
canning and processing, grow determinate varieties. Determinate varieties
are smaller plants, their growth shoots terminate with a cluster of flower
buds, and set most of their flowers and fruit at one time, ensuring that
the majority of the fruit ripens at nearly the same time. Makes harvesting
easier.

Most common tomato varieties grown in the home garden are indeterminate
varieties. These types keep growing, continuously producing flowers and
fruit through the season.

Tomatoes grown on bare ground without support can get bug and critter
damaged, but there are branches that will have enough support to keep the
fruit above the ground and avoid damage. A layer of a soft mulch (dried
grass clippings or spoiled hay) placed around the plants once the soil is
heated up will prevent some of the damage.

Thanks Richard,

I think I know what to do for next time. I will definitely go deeper
and angle, as per my last posting to Sue. I had no idea about
determinate and indeterminate flowering. I think the "tiny green
bubbles" I saw at the bases of the stems would have been these
adventitious roots. Unfortunately, they never had the soil to grow
into.

What I should have done was come on here in early May with a "How Do
You Plant Tomatoes" posting or looked it up on the net.

My friend told me to try to build up the area around the bases of the
stems with mulch, top soil might have been better, but unless I got
tons of it, it would all fall away.

Next year.

Thanks again,

Alan

Tomato plants will form roots along the stem (adventitious roots), so by
planting most of the stem underground you provide a larger area for roots
to form and then supply nutrients to the plant.

Planting at an angle (or planting horizontally, bending the tip of the
plant up above the soil surface) is done to keep the original rootball in
the uppper, warmer areas of the soil early in the season. Otherwise the
rootball would be planted in colder soil than if it was shallow planted,
and it will slow down the growth of the plant, until the soil warms up.